Lions for LambsRobert Redford

Robert Redford loves truth, justice and freedom. He may not know how to express all that with enough interest to hold an audiences attention for 90 minutes but hes a damn good man.

He knows his politics too and hes not afraid to wear his anti-war ideals on his sleeve, but his film is just too boring. Its all talk, literally; its just long conversations. He asks many questions about Americas quagmire in Iraq, important ones at that, but none of them get answered.

Dawsons Creek way, so you cant really give him an inch. Enter the third segment, in which two soldiers (Michael Peña and Derek Luke), both former students of Redfords, board a doomed chopper in Afghanistan as part of the surge Cruises senator is selling.

Its hard to smash a man of Robert Redfords prestige; it almost hurts. Hes the man, but heres what really snuffs his fire: timing, or lack thereof. Timing is everything in film, and though Lions speaks earnestly about the need for change in this war-ridden world, its merely tailing a film year rife with post-9/11 paranoia. Rendition and The Kingdom both screamed the same message: "Maybe were the problem, not the Taliban, and "The government buys the news. Okay, people need to wake up. We get it.

Its all really sharp and thought provoking but Lions misses the boat because of its time slot. One could argue that seasoned movie men like Redford know better than to release their paeans before the winter. Everyone who wants a shot at the gold statuette knows this blunt tactic. Its all about having the last word really. Redfords is an intelligent one, a long, really talky intelligent one. It just would have meant more six months ago.
(MGM/UA)